CCI presents the reports on the results of monitoring the work of executive and legislative authorities in BiH for first quarter of 2016. Below you can see how the authorities at the level of entities in BiH worked during the first quarter of the year and what the CCIs’ recommendations are for improving the process of work.

Report on monitoring the work of the Republic of Srpska Government and National Assembly for period Januar - March 2016 can be downloaded from here.

You can download the Report on monitoring the work of BH Federation Government and Federal Parliament for first quarter of 2016 from here.

These CCIs’ activities are supported by USAID as part of the project Civil Society Sustainability Program (CSSP). 

“To The Competent and not to the Eligible” is a new CCI campaign that aims at de-politicization and departy-zation in nominations and employment in BiH public sector. 

The Centres for Civic Initiatives (CCI) started, with the support of the European Union, the project “Strengthening the Integrity of Public Sector: De-Politicization for the Rule of Law” which aims at contributing to the rule of law and good governance in BiH, advocating professionalism and public sector integrity, especially the procedure of nominations and employment in the public sector.   

In the past 3 months CCI created a comprehensive analysis on the number and the manner of nominations and employment in the government and public administration institutions, with an emphasis on a huge problem of politicization and party-zation of the leading positions in the public sector, as well as on the overall public employment captured by the interests of the individuals and political parties.  One of the results of the Analysis included a Policy Brief with the most important recommendations the adoption of which would lead to decreased politicization and party-zation of BH public sector. All the materials, partly in English too, are available from the project’s website. In parallel to making the Analysis, the portal www.sposobnimanepodobnim.ba  was also launched, which includes a database that offers an overview of all institutions/government bodies/companies with over 15.000 names of “political” nominations. In addition to the above database, the portal includes all public job vacancy announcements in public administration, even those that are not published on agencies’ websites, and the testimonies of the people who unsuccessfully  applied for jobs in public administration, info-graphics, news, etc.

At the press conference held by mid-June the main findings of the Analysis were presented to the public, as well as the recommendations and the possibilities offered by the web portal. We were joined by the young, educated and jobless people who tried to apply for a job in public administration for several times, but without success. They expressed their support by carrying the boards with a slogan “To the Competent and Not to the Eligible”.

Citizens will be able to join the campaign primarily via the mentioned web portal where they can report irregularities or share their experiences with job vacancy announcements in public administration, give their support to amendments to the law, i.e. to adoption of CCIs’ recommendations via an on line petition, where, they can leave comments next to the news and testimonies from public job vacancy announcements, and find the information related to the procedures of applying for jobs in public administration, their rights and the possibilities of their protection. 

The first video was posted on the official you tube channel of the project, which consists of testimonies of the citizens who suffered damage or injustice during applying for a job in the public administration, just because they were politically unsuitable. The video is available from the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLySmjoGZCcvwu89DtRy7LboM4Nvyv4v4-&v=O0cTLS8jlsc

At the end of May, the partner organization on the project, Center for Investigation Journalism CIN, created the first investigation story on the problem of politicization of public administration. The story addresses the problem of appointment of primary school principals in Canton Tuzla, which was done on the basis of political ties. The text is available from https://www.cin.ba/politicke-stranke-upravljaju-skolama/.

The First Time I Vote! is the name of the activity through which the Coalition 'Pod lupom' intend to educate young people about the importance of the electoral process.

In Teslic, on March 18 -20, there was a training for 28 young educators of the Coalition 'Pod lupom' who would implement 672 interactive workshops for senior students of high schools (graduates) as well as freshmen across the country under the title ''The First Time I Vote!'' This activity aims to educate 15.000 young voters on the electoral process, and to motivate them to go out on the upcoming local elections. By the end of May 549 workshops were held and 12.025 young people were educated. 
Delegation of EU in BiH supports the work of coalition 'Pod lupom'.

Only 34% of the measures from the Reform Agenda Action Plans have been implemented in BiH. CCI published a report “State of the Nation” which monitors the realization of the measures from the Reform Agenda for the period January – April 2016.   

The most important measures, mostly laws, have been much too often adopted in an urgent procedure, without a public debate, contrary to the public interest. The whole process of adoption of the Reform Agenda was non-transparent, and the Council of Ministers’ and the RS Government Action Plans were not available to the public. Some of the laws, already adopted, were voted down in the Constitutional Court, as was the case with the Labour Act in FBiH. These are just some of the findings of the mentioned report. The integral report as well as the main findings about the realization and the efficiency of the Reform Agenda is available from the website www.posaonarodu.ba, in the local language only.

This report is based on three methodological approaches, namely using quantitative methods to evaluate the implementation of the action plans at all levels, using the secondary data of measuring economic, business, social and other characteristics of a country, while the third approach is based on linking the selected indicators with the chapters – the Reform Agenda fields. The report clearly shows the connection of each indicator with its corresponding field in the Reform Agenda, and in this way enables clear informing on the changes i.e. effects of the reform. The number of indicators in this report was reduced from 70 to 54, allowing the report to be more concise and more focused. The report had its promotion on 30 May 2016 in Sarajevo and was strongly followed by the media.

Another activity that we underline on this project was the organization of the conference “Reforms and Employment: State and Perspectives”. This conference gathered the key actors from legislative and executive authorities, competent institutions, political parties, civil society organizations, employers’ and workers’ unions’ organizations, academic community, international and diplomatic representatives, as well as the media. The goal of the conference itself was to start an open dialogue that will contribute to better understanding of the planned, expected and implemented reforms. The analysis of active employment policies carried out by CCI in order to start legislative initiatives for more efficient employment public policies and more efficient public employment services, was also presented in the conference.

The project “Reforms and Job” has a goal to contribute toward increasing the responsibility of BH authorities for reducing unemployment through active participation in initiating, passing, implementation and monitoring of key economic reforms and new public policies contained in BH Reform Agenda 2015-2018. The project will offer periodical reports on the progress of implementation of the Reform Agenda, the effects of reforms of various public policies on the standard of  living, and will at the same time initiate and advocate a number of activities that will contribute toward creation of new jobs. 

This is only a part of the activities carried out by CCI on the project ‘Reforms and Job’ which is supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in BiH.

A conference “Adult Education – Generation Reform” was held and CCIs’ report on monitoring of making and implementing adult education public policies in BiH was presented. 

The conference was held in Sarajevo in April. The current situation in the adult education field was presented focusing on its relation with labour market.  More than 30 representatives of relevant state institutions, entities’ and cantonal assemblies, education ministries, pedagogical institutions, representatives of public employment services, employers, educational institutions, non-governmental organizations representatives, professional and academic institutions and media took part in the Conference. This was an opportunity for a discussion on the importance of adult education on the road toward the European Union.   

In addition to that, continued the advocacy activities on the Project “Edu and Job”. In a number of meetings and other contacts with the representatives of the education ministries in Herzegovina-Neretva, Central Bosnia and Canton 10, CCI started the process of passing the adult education legislation. On 06 June 2016, the Assembly of Canton 10 adopted the Draft Law on Adult Education for Canton 10. Final adoption of the adult education laws in the above 3 cantons are expected by the end of 2016.

These activities are carried out as part of the project „Edu&Job“with the support of the Delegation of the European Commission in BiH.

More about these and other activities on the project ‘Edu&Job’ is available at www.uciradi.ba

The capacities of representatives of trade unions, employers’ association and relevant entity ministries in the field of collective negotiations, management and conflict-solving, strengthened.  

These activities are implemented by CCI as part of the project “Strengthening the Understanding and Capacities of Social Partners in BiH in Social Dialogue and Collective Bargaining” with the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the  Netherlands in BiH.

This project aims at contributing toward strengthening the social dialogue and collective bargaining in both entities in order to increase social cohesion and the development of BH society.  

The General Bargaining Agreement  was signed by the BH Federation Government, the Association of Independent BiH Unions and FBiH Employers’ Association in the first half of the year, although it did not   come into effect due to contesting the representation of employers’ associations and of some trade union organizations. The negotiations of social partners in RS, Government, Employers’ Association and RS Association of Trade Unions, about passing of the General Bargaining Agreement have not been finalized yet.

All the materials for holding a new cycle of seminars in both entities were prepared in April by CCI, together with the lecturers from the Dutch Association of Employers and the Dutch Association of Trade Unions. Two-day seminars on topic “Collective bargaining: purpose, methods, and techniques” were held on May 24 and 25 in Sarajevo and May 27 and 28 in Banja Luka. The seminars were attended by more than 40 representatives of representative trade unions, employers, entities’ competent ministries who had an opportunity to gain new knowledge, skills and learn new techniques in collective bargaining, three-partite and bi-partite dialogue, and gain new knowledge on conflict management and solving. All the participants were at the end awarded the certificates on completed education bargaining education program.   

In parallel to these activities, CCI prepared a comparative analysis on social dialogue and collective bargaining in  BiH in relation to international norms and the best practices of European countries good examples from the countries of the region. The analysis also produced a set of  recommendations for improvement of the domestic context of social dialogue; it is available to the public in both printed and electronic format.    

IPA funds in BiH – Opportunities and Possibilities Taken/Missed is a new CCI publication. 

The goal of this book is to familiarize the citizens with IPA funds and is to contribute toward improving the situation in BiH in terms of raising the funds from the European Union funds.

This book is intended for a wider public and is of informative character.

Summary in english is available here.

IPA funds in BiH – Opportunities and Possibilities Taken/Missed is free for download.(only in local language).

These acctivities are undertaken within the Civil Society Sustainability Program (CSSP), supported by USAID.

The Coalition for Free and Fair Elections ‘Pod lupom’ (In the Spotlight) became a full member of the Global Network of Domestic Election Monitors (GNDEM) comprised of more than 190 regional networks and out-of-party civil society organizations from throughout the world.  

GNDEM network exists since 1986, and currently covers five continents in 85 countries, including Bosnia and Herzegovina. The purpose of this network is to make the sharing of information and the best practices between the network members as easy as possible. GNDEM tries to improve the methodology for systematic and fact-based election monitoring, as well as the capacities of regional networks and nonpartisan civil society organizations by knowledge sharing and through interactive communication among the members. This network has more than 1.000 useful documents that are as of now available in ‘Pod lupom’ Coalition too. Key topics from throughout the world relating to the election process are addressed in the documents.

‘Pod lupom’ Coalition led by CCI along with 5 more civil society organizations implements the BASE project – Building Accountability and Systems in Elections, supported by the EU Delegation in BiH.